Dek Unu Magazine - Lieven Neirinck

Dek Unu Magazine

March 2024

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Magazine
© Dek Unu Arts, 2024

Eleven

This is Dek Unu Magazine. In Esperanto, dek unu means "eleven." Eleven images
from a single artist. Eleven artists in eleven solo issues in each publication year.
Dek Unu publishes the work of a new artist-photographer in each issue. The
artist's work and words are featured in individual focus as the sole purpose for
each issue of the magazine. Unlike other arts and letters magazines which might
look for work from a variety of artists to support an editorial staff's theme, at Dek
Unu, theme and imagery are always each artist's own.

This Month

Belgian artist, photographer, teacher, book-lover, and magician with
light Lieven Neirinck makes diaries — one new entry, selected from
everything between one midnight and the next, for each of 100 days. On
the 100th day, the project stops and, after a day or two, another begins.
The pop version of the photo-a-day challenge is well-known on social
media, there is even an app that will make a video of a year or more of
selfies, but Neirinck’s singular work shows how the calendar structure
can work as motivation and creative fuel for an extraordinary fine
artist.

The images in “Everyday Burn Out” are organized around the artist’s
return “to earth” after two years of exhaustion from “turbulent life at
crazy speed.” A film and photography professor for 40 years, Neirinck's
approach is like that of a director who imagines, scripts, designs,
constructs, and acts in his art. He describes each work as a "frozen"
performance; each photograph summarizes and consolidates a time and
the sequence of actions that convey an emotion and embody an idea.
These images are richly cinematic arrangements of details, backgrounds,
and human subjects, illuminated by masterfully-placed strobes,
projectors, spots, floods, and flashlit brushstrokes. All are rendered in
jewel-like color against deep shadows, all mysterious, all deeply
affecting. The magician's vivid, directional light always catches the
narrow edge between the everyday and the very thoroughly surreal. His
astonishing diary deserves a careful and lingering visit.

Day 13, One Day I'll Fly Away. Next to my favourite coffeehouse a house stands desolated
and nobody is there anymore. | like exploring, so | get inside and have a look in every room.
There is this space with a wall painting of a flying unicorn. | want to crawl on her back and
get away from everything. Feeling the ground losing its grip and sensing the lightness of

the air, | hear Randy Crawford singing her tune.

Day 34, Babousjka, Matrousjka and Me. My children like to play with me all kinds of
characters. Everyone knows the Russian puppets that fit seamlessly together inside each
other to end up as one figure. Today we all bow and feel strongly connected with one

another.

Day 43, Tunnel Vision. Tunnel vision is a short-sighted vision with little context. | have
not much time to photograph this situation. Sun is sprankling through the tunnel and |
still have to place my flashes in order to get the action of the bowed man in the mainlight.

Two types of light are weighed against each other in a fragile balance.

Day 50, Happy Birthday, My Sweet Valentine. Today is the 12th of February and my
little girl, who is posing in the right window, is 10 years old. But before we have the
birthday party, my son and she have to pose for the picture. We are all three bowing our
heads for the future to come. Being humble and submissive is the atmosphere | want to

create.

Day 53, A Frozen Loneliness. Today | walk in the park near my house. | feel somehow
tired and my eye catches this sculpture. It is called “Mom and Child and the First Step.”
An idea of hope and reflection. She looks to the ground and firmly holds her child. |

pose together with her, back to back. But | stay alone.

Day 68, A Walk in the Park. Hey, where is this park? Two lonely trees and that’s it. All the
rest is concrete. But nature has shown its face today in the form of snow. It gives somehow

consolation for the absence of nature.

Day 69, Walls Around Me. Behind the classroom in which | give lessons in photography
and creativity, there is an empty space with a couple of benches to have a little snack in
the pause between two classes. Nobody sits here today. It is rather cold. The place gives
me a moment of psychological rest. No one is trying to speak to me or asking me to help

or asking for comment. | love my moment of solitude.

Day 75, A Stranger in My House. | am alone in my house. There is no shouting and playing
of my children. The space feels different without them. | have to reinvent myself every week
again when they are with their mother. Suddenly my house is too big, too empty, too
hollow. So | start inventing ways to paint the walls with light. It gives a strange ionizing feeling
to be in complete darkness while | am photographing and afterwards seeing the sparkling

results.

Day 79, Menhir Modesty. | have passed this monument numerous times without stopping.
They are not old, it is a contemporary monument. It gives us a feeling of monumentality to
pose at the foot of these colossi. We only can see in the camera the effect of the shadow

thrown upon these monuments. Humility versus monumentality.

Day 84, Organising principles. It is Sunday evening. Nobody is coming to the mall. Nothing
has to be organised and structured. There is only emptiness. It is a vast empty space with a
lack of human activity. But we are here to give meaning to the compartments on the ground.

We want to be structured, otherwise we loose grip on reality. Chaos is the other extreme.

Day 91, Land’s End. No sunshine today. | will have to wait still a few months before spring
is back in the country. So long | am moving in half darkness. The silence and the view of the

lake gives me rest.

Artist Interview - Lieven Neirinck

Welcome, Lieven! You make photo "diaries," an image a
day for 100 days. A great idea, how did it start?

At a certain point, thinking about what to do and what to
photograph, I realized that sticking close to my habitat is
the most honest way to tell something real. If my life sucks
then I know I have to change it and make myself happy.
Therefore, I looked closely at my own backyard and
realized how unique my own life is. So I started to work

Lieven Neirinck

with my own life as a subject to photograph. But my way of
making diaries is rather special. Each day goes from midnight
to midnight, and each image must be made in a 24-hour day.
Each day stops and a new opportunity is given. If it is not so
good, so be it. I let loose of the result. I don’t improve this
result anymore. It stays as it has been photographed. I collect
these personal days on paper. I place them one after the other
and this way you can browse through time. A rhythm
develops. A movement. You find yourself in one day and then
let go and end up in a new reality the next day. No day is the
same. Every day has its story. Everything starts over again,
one after another. See and let go.

What about this particular diary, Everyday Burn Out?

It is a simple truth. I have had a major burnout for a couple
of years. I lived in a turbulent way at a crazy speed, so
I crashed. I read about it and did call for help from a lot of
different people. Then I realized I had to make contact
again with the ground and give my head some rest. So the
metaphor of the bowed man is honest. He looks to the
ground and wants to walk again with a steady step on the
earth. It is an expression of humility and surrender. So I
felt. This specific symbolic human attitude is my item of
research.

For some, "burnout" is fixed by a day off and a bottle of
wine. You are talking about something much different.

Burnout just doesn't happen instantly. It comes from far
away and travels a long way before striking. For me, the
secret source of energy that previously shaped every
decision, every leap into the unknown, suddenly seems cut
off. Days become empty deserts full of doom, nights create
encounters with your deepest fears.

This journey humbled me for life. I suffer the weight of the
world. Previously, thoughts took me to unreachable light
places full of energetic fire. Now I bow my head and feel
the heaviness of my body. I look where I stand. To the
ground. "Grounding." Getting back in touch with life and
reality. That's what I'm here to do. Restore contact.

Slowly, very slowly, I am gaining new perspectives on my
life and possibilities that shape my change. This is a diary
of 100 consecutive days in which I discover the bent man
within myself.

Please share your bio. Who? When? Where?

Iam a farmer's son out of a big family. We were 5 children
and I am the youngest son. My father died when I was 2.5
years old. My mother stayed a widow for the rest of her life
and did everything to raise her children well. When I was
15 years old, I knew I was not going to study as an architect
or engineer. I wanted to have adventure. The world was
mine. Then I built my own dark room. From that moment
on my track in life was clear.

I did a lot of printing in my darkroom when I was 16 or 17.
This was a happy time. The whole process was witchcraft
to me. There I made the first pictures I sold in my village. I
got a lot of respect and this helped me grow emotionally
and mentally. So I was ready to go for more. I was a good
student with an aptitude for mathematics, but I chose to
study arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent. I followed
the course of photography together with film. My mom
was ny biggest fan.

I live in West-Flanders. That is a province in Belgium
where they speak Flemish. My town is a little provincial
town called Kortrijk. We live close to French border and
you can feel this culture every day in a lot of things. I have
a residence with a modest artist atelier. Here I work. I
print and draw and have close contact with all of my
friends.

Your images are beautifully conceived. Talk about your
photography training. How did you become so good?

From the academy and in my 40-year career, I know
technically, aesthetically, and historically, everything about

the medium. I gave lessons in it for 40 years. So technique
is nothing new to me. What I didn’t learn in the academy
was my capacity to brainstorm. This I discovered with one
friend and later on with a couple of friends I further
excavated this path. It was brand new and _ so
unpredictable but these ingredients were essential in my
creative growth. What I learned is to have a firm theme
and keep hold of it. I call it focus. I choose something very
defined. Then I start to reinvent and excavate it. This is
the real challenge. Everything else follows.

Performance action

My best friends are also well-known photographers. But
still I had to grow a lot more in order to realize that
photography is one medium next to so many other ways of
telling your story. Now, 40 years later, I realize I am a
performer more than anything else. I act in my life and
play before the camera. This makes me happy.

You're the actor and your photos are performances?

In my performances there are a number of parallels but
also a number of fundamental differences with the idea of

"performance." I call mine FREEZE performances. These
are performances in which the action is set up and ends in
a cumulative time segment that is captured by the camera
in a single image. A performance is mainly an
intervention, an action that takes place in a specific place
and for a limited time. This action as a whole is a work of
art.

I am the protagonist of all actions and I lead the entire
intervention in each image. The action might be to paint
the space with light. In complete darkness, I will work with
light of all sizes and definitions. The photo is built up into
a whole, stripe by stripe or dot by dot, using slide
projectors, flashes, flood lamps, portable lights, flashlights,
etc. All actions take place according to the content in the
image. This content guides and shows the direction in
which the actions develop. The performance is composed
and arranged into a whole by all kinds of artistic
interventions, it is the combination of all plastic means in
interaction. When the action is completed, the
performance stops, and photography becomes both
capture and creation. The end result of the FREEZE
performance looks like a photo, it feels like a photo, it
speaks like a photo, but it is a performance. Since there is
no audience in my studio to see it, the image is the only
communication from the work to the audience.

From the original idea, you've made an amazing variety of
images. Do you ever get blocked? Talk about your creativity.

The pace of events, especially daily repetition, is a creative
hub. Maintaining this pace, to create 100 images in as many
days, creates frictions and black holes, so you have to fix a

reserve. Fallbacks, as it were, to use in times of scarcity. I
have everything written down and drawn in my
sketchbooks. I have 25 of those books filled with all my
ideas during the years. When my house burns down, I will
save first my children and then my sketchbooks because
the drawing and ideabooks are my head.

But the really wonderful thing is when creation presents
itself from scratch. There is only the void, without any
node. A suddenly unannounced sparkle from a distant or
near past presents itself. It grows into an image in no time.
You can't go back. It has already metamorphosed into your
imagination. An uncontrolled course of constructive
segments now directs your brain. A deep feeling of letting
go and receiving overwhelms you. These are moments of
surrender and enlightenment. Each action follows the
other and there is a day difference. As time progresses, the
interventions become layered. I often build on previous
actions to shape a new action. On the basis of objects in the
image, a rhythmically recognizable continuation occurs in
the story. A chronological course in reading the
performances presents itself.

It begins when I start focusing. I find a lock through which
I have to go. So I start brainstorming. Most times I can
search for days to find the right way. But suddenly a simple
word can open a lot of closed doors. This word is my guide
and then I start my unpredictable journey. I may not
know what I will do the next day and how the result will
look alike. The process dictates your direction. This
process is a real sensation. Nothing you read about it.
Nothing you know. Something new and tantalizing. I go

to bed and I love to think it over. Then in the morning I
wake up and find the solution easily. When the idea is
fresh and unheard.

Some artists prefer go it alone, others thrive on
community. Which kind are you?

Of course, I have several friends and everyone has his own
way of looking and sensing. To whom I address a project
depends on what sort of work or installation I am creating.
Some friends are wilder than I am, some have a more
spiritual way of sensing. I start my work and then I go to
them but always in a different order. And most of them, in
fact, all of them, are positive. Not that negativity is banned
but it is so much more challenging to be positive and
enlarge the pros instead of downsizing and hitting on the
negative. With them I will think it over, sometimes they
have new insights. It is so energizing and cool to feel a real
connection with them.

I started to reinvent myself on my way to happiness and I
did this by having a lot of fun with a lot of my friends. So I
started numerous artist groups. I was a leader. This was a
quality I had to accept. I was incredibly curious. Sure, when
I meet you, I will ask you a thousand questions in order to
learn something that is new to me and, at first sight,
incomprehensible. There are so many things to see in
normal life that are everyday but so extraordinary. We walk
past and don’t see because our mind is closed. You have to
open every channel in your thinking and you start to see.
For the moment, I lead a group of four friends with whom I
create big installations for festivals throughout Europe.
Brainstorming with them keeps me alert and young.

You are a retired teacher. What did you like about
teaching? Anything you found not so enjoyable?

So I am. A retired teacher. I give advice. I listen and then I
try to crawl into your head and give you insights in new
ways of looking and new perceptions. This makes me
happy. I don’t say if anything is bad or good.

Explaining works at Expo Mono Libris

In my course of educating, I realized at a certain point
there is no good and bad. There is only honesty. Everyone
wants to be a great artist. But in fact, this is something they
read about it or learned about it by culture. The real thing
is, "Who are you?" My task as a teacher was simply to make
you awake to your reality. I taught a lot of people to believe
in themselves. If you feel good about it, hold the feeling
and build upon it. I was trained on the "result." Everything
should be best and better. There was a lot of competition. I
hate competition. I do not teach this way. I look for what
people need to start exploring their own creativity with
fun. Trust in their own process and then go for it.

One of my first lessons was asking everyone in class to
bring proof of their curiosity to the next lesson. There was
no limit to how to prove it; just show me how curious you
are. If there is no curiosity whatsoever, then I can not
speak to you about creativity.

Cycling fhrough Italy
"Imitate the masters" is the cliché advice of traditional art
instruction. Your advice is, refreshingly, very different.

My advice was always to keep close to yourself. This sounds
easy but it isn’t. A lot of people don’t know anything
anymore of themselves. They don't know what they feel.
They don’t follow their instincts anymore. The feeling in the
belly. For them, the head alone is important, the reasoning.
I have to teach them to laugh again. Because they think
they always have to be serious when they want to make
artistic work. I make them laugh. Laughing is real. It is
from you. You fall out of your formal role and you feel
something weird. Then you laugh. Then you can start
learning. Then I firmly said they had to choose. A word. Not
difficult. A very simple word. Hold to it and start your
research. You very quickly will realize that this word is a
complete dictionary of creative possibilities.

Is there a teacher or mentor who had a significant
impact on your thinking, your practice, or your life?

One of my first real revelations was when I worked
together with Luc Vandromme. We had been doing a lot of
painting with light in a dark room and we worked the
whole afternoon together. At the end of the day, we lay the
resulting images on the floor of my attic to view. I was
completely confused. What was lying on the floor didn’t
match any of my criteria of being bad or good. It was
simply different. But my feeling was so good. So I asked
my friend, "Is this good stuff we made?" Then he said to
me the historical words, "When we say it is good, then it is
good." From that moment I realized, I am an author and I
excavated new ways of looking and new ideas. And I stand
alone.

"One Day | Will Fly Away" and "A Stranger in My House" defy
the laws of physics. How did you do that? Software trickery?

I do almost nothing in Photoshop. What you see has
happened in reality. To make "One Day I Will Fly Away," I
jumped off the windowsill at the right moment. I do
everything alone. Nobody around me. | like it this way. |
have bought myself a portable flash studio with lights
triggered by a radio signal. This is a tool that can help to
do marvelous things in photography. For "A Stranger in
My House," the optical effects are the result of light
painting, in complete darkness, while the shutter stands
open. Then I use a flash to freeze myself in the image.

Is there still film in one (or more) of your cameras?

In my first years, I was a traditional photographer. I did
analog photography for more than 25 years. I adopted

digital in 2003 and started to teach it in 2004. I waited until
things were inevitable. By 2004, analog photography had
given up the battle because speed for the result was the
new religion. Now, I use Sony digital cameras and well-
known software but I do a lot of pinhole photography. I
design my own cameras to fit the content of my work. I still
have a wet darkroom. Now, my analog photography is
exercised with black and white papers and pinhole
cameras.

What about Al? Has it found a place in your practice?

To this moment, no. But it is arriving. Artificial intelligence
is all about the result, not about the physical and
intellectual processes you have to fulfill. So to my strong
belief, I won’t be affected because I believe firmly in the
process the artist has to experience.

Is the Internet useful to you? Post vs print? Online
publication? Social media?

I think that the Internet is a quick way of communicating
with a lot of opportunities. It fills up a gap of ignorance. It
shows you the possibilities. But it is quick, and not slow.
You forget a lot and it doesn’t dig deeper. If you really
want to be touched, you have to slow down. A print does
make you stop in space. This can evoke emotions at
another level. I haven’t been showing my work a lot in the
last twenty years. I built installations in Europe with my
friends and my personal work was to be shown later,
when time was ready. So, most of my works nobody has
ever seen. I have only recently started communicating this
work and you are the first in decades to show an interest.
I don’t care what other people say. My creativity is driving
me and I don't reflect about the heavy load. I keep on
searching for the right image on the right day.

Thanks, Lieven. What's next for you?

To learn more about the world of exposition and
publication, I have started a new kind of diary, 100 days of
"everyday communication." I will show my _ work
somewhere new every day for 100 days. I have lots of
unseen works that I'm looking forward to showing and
seeing what happens. Beyond that, I have an agenda filled
with projects through 2030 and, next year I am doing a
bicycle trip (process is cycling) around France in a weird way.

Stay in touch with Lieven Neirinck
https://www.instagram.com/lieven.neirinck/

lieven {dot} hetpakt {at} gmail {dot} com

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